Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Greg Hamilton
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000364A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:27 This is a program that brings you up-to-date news 00:30 and discussion on religious liberty events 00:33 all around the world 00:35 but particularly in the United States. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:40 and my guest on the program, Greg Hamilton, 00:43 President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:47 That's a big mouthful, but you do a lot... 00:48 So there's a long billing. 00:53 You know, these are crazy times 00:55 and I find that apart from prophecy 00:58 and the Bible which is core central 00:59 for any Christian to look at the world, 01:02 but history's a pretty good jumping off point 01:05 to understand the present. 01:06 You look at the past and while it doesn't repeat, 01:08 it sets you up for. 01:10 And I don't know about you, 01:12 but I have thought lately about some of the events, 01:14 turbulent events in Europe that preceded World War II. 01:19 And we've had political chaos of sorts 01:22 in the US of late 01:23 and I thought recently and even as far back as 9/11. 01:28 9/11 was only 16 years ago. 01:30 I know. 01:31 For me it's just yesterday but, 01:33 ask my daughter who was born in 2001. 01:34 Yes. Right, right. 01:37 Late in 2001, 01:40 you know, I thought about the Reichstag fire. 01:42 The Reichstag fire in Germany... 01:44 In Germany... 1933. 01:46 Which really... 01:47 I've read many books, scene many programs, 01:50 no one can say definitively who started it. 01:54 But everybody knows that was the catalyst 01:58 that created an opening for the Nazis 02:00 and for Adolf Hitler to have unquestioned power 02:03 and it just went downhill from there. 02:06 Yeah, and Hitler had just been elected 02:09 as head of government 02:10 and before it was all said and done. 02:12 As a compromise candidate 02:13 with not really overwhelming electoral support. 02:16 Before it was all said and done, 02:18 the parliament passed the enabling act... 02:20 Well, that was after the Reichstag 02:22 that's probably gave it to him. 02:23 Yeah, gave him the enabling act 02:25 that allowed him to rule by decree 02:27 and there began the dictatorship 02:30 and the fall of Weimar Republic in Germany's history. 02:34 And what's interesting the Weimar Republic 02:37 was making huge strides way ahead of its time 02:40 in terms of democratic reforms, 02:42 including civil rights, religious rights everything, 02:46 and Germany, the people for some reason especially 02:49 the Lutheran Church 02:50 which represented sort of the Christian right of the day, 02:53 and even the Catholic Church said, 02:55 you know, this doesn't line up with our sense of woundedness 02:59 and our sense of nationalism. 03:00 We need to make Germany great again. 03:03 And so, the way to do that was to do what? 03:07 Was to bring in the Nazis because and there go, 03:10 if you read this book by Robert Erickson 03:13 from Pacific Lutheran University, 03:15 he's going to be a guest speaker, 03:16 April 10th at Walla Walla University, 03:19 April 9th and 10th. 03:20 In fact, we're co-sponsoring his arrival 03:23 and paying some money and are providing our logo 03:28 for the advertisement everything... 03:30 You should ask him to come on this program. 03:32 That'll be good but he wrote a book called, 03:34 Complicity in the Holocaust: 03:36 Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany. 03:38 They were there's no question. 03:39 Well, the Lutheran Church essentially seized Hitler 03:44 and propped him up 03:45 and made him a national savior. 03:47 It was a Christian right 03:48 who elevated Hitler to his place 03:52 in the eyes of the German people. 03:54 And history is very plain, 03:55 you don't see these quotes anymore, 03:56 but you can go and look them up. 03:59 Hitler made some incredibly positive statements 04:01 about religion. 04:02 He said, The German state in the Nazi regime was founded, 04:06 absolutely founded on the Christian religion. 04:07 Right 04:09 Well, looking back on it, you know, 04:10 it couldn't be further from the truth, 04:11 but they said that and it was accepted. 04:13 And he loved to quote Romans 13:1-3 04:16 that the powers that be the rulers that be the, 04:19 you know, they're for your good and not bad 04:21 and you're told bathed him no matter what... 04:23 And remember fairly early on, he singed a concordat 04:27 with the Roman Catholic Church which was not just a treaty, 04:32 it was a concordat, it means a full agreement, 04:35 you know, so that he had the full backing 04:37 of the Roman Catholic Church, they liked his moral agenda. 04:40 Well, the Reichstag fire was interesting 04:42 because it serves as a warning. 04:44 Basically what Hitler and the Nazis did is, say, 04:47 this was a bunch of leftist terrorists 04:50 who burned down the Reichstag, 04:52 and therefore all you people need to, 04:55 you know, these people are terrorists 04:57 and therefore you need to back us. 04:59 So terrorism you could say 05:01 was the beginning of the downfall 05:03 of the Weimar Republic of the democratic experiment 05:05 in Germany. 05:06 And there's an article in The New York Review of Books 05:09 by Timothy Snyder 05:11 that just came out called the "Reichstag Warning" 05:13 about how that could so easily happen 05:16 with the propaganda and everything else, 05:18 so easily that could happen here, 05:20 right here in the United States of America. 05:22 Yeah. 05:23 I was watching a program 05:25 recently about the Hitler Youth groups 05:27 which were the only game in town 05:30 by the time the war began. 05:34 And they interviewed some of the now old people 05:37 who were young people then, 05:38 and they said that it wasn't obligatory at first, 05:42 but these young people were taken off 05:43 for they were living in the cities 05:45 and here they go camping in the country 05:47 and it was a wonderful outdoor life, 05:49 but from the beginning 05:50 it was a very adversarial relationships. 05:52 The kids were told to fight 05:53 till there was blood drawn and all, 05:55 so they were being trained to soldiers, 05:57 and the social pressure was very strong to join 06:00 the Hitler Youth thing, 06:01 so that increased its popularity, 06:03 but then it reached the point 06:04 when they were quite a major group 06:06 that they would march down the street calling out 06:10 to the other kids in the houses, 06:12 and if they didn't come down, 06:14 they would send a couple of Hitler 06:16 Youth in to drag them down 06:17 and forcibly take them off to the meetings. 06:20 And then further than that, 06:21 he said, it's because this young, 06:22 one of the fellows, who was young at that time, 06:26 he said, that his father didn't agree of the Nazis 06:28 so he didn't join. 06:29 And he said, at school the teacher would punish them 06:32 for not being part of the Hitler Youth, 06:34 so the pressure was incredibly overwhelming socially, 06:38 but then there was curse in the plot 06:39 because you were not a good German 06:41 if you were not part of the Hitler Youth. 06:44 Not only that but after 1933 the Nazi regime made use 06:47 of a supposed threat of terrorism against Germans 06:49 from an imaginary international Jewish conspiracy, 06:52 and so, after five years of repressing Jews in 1938, 06:56 the German state began to deport them. 06:59 It almost sounds like the same dilemma 07:01 we have now or the same propaganda 07:04 that's being used now to deport certain groups of people. 07:08 Whether they be Muslims, Mexican, or whatever. 07:10 By no stretch of the imagination, 07:12 you know, could we compare this administration 07:15 with Hitler's henchmen, 07:17 I mean, they were whole different animal 07:19 but the patterns of human behavior 07:23 and of control are the same. 07:25 Right. 07:27 And we are almost falling haphazardly 07:29 into the same pattern. 07:31 There's a need for moral new world, 07:33 Hitler felt that it had been betrayed 07:35 in the Versailles Treaty 07:37 and their greatness lay behind them 07:38 and there was an appeal to be made great again. 07:42 Even Hitler when he became chancellor, 07:44 he was a minority party. 07:45 Right. 07:47 He didn't win it by an overwhelming mandate, 07:50 but Hindenburg 07:51 and the other power brokers thought that 07:54 they could diffuse this growing agitation 07:57 with a rather aggressive Nazi party 07:59 that was causing some trouble in the streets. 08:01 They could put Hitler and use him as a useful puppet 08:04 and diffuse the social unrest 08:06 and they miscalculated very badly. 08:08 In 1989 right when the Cold War 08:12 basically was being won by the United States, 08:14 thanks to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. 08:18 God bless him and his family, but the president 08:23 or the current president back in 1983 Donald Trump said, 08:27 "Civil liberties end when an attack 08:30 on our safety begins." 08:32 I find it interesting because, 08:34 you know, all it takes 08:36 is another catastrophic terrorist attack 08:38 and what he says is already in his head 08:42 in terms of what he will do. 08:43 It's unfortunate. 08:45 And of course, that's proven by history 08:46 and any number of other people have said similar things 08:48 but that's very ominous that thought crossed his mind. 08:53 Yes, I've sometimes even on this program 08:55 I think suggested that we might just be one cataclysm 08:59 or a major disastrous event away 09:01 from at the very least a sort of a lock, 09:04 a moral or a freedom lockdown. 09:06 Yeah. 09:07 It seems that that's very possible, 09:11 whether that happens or not remains to be seen, 09:13 but to me it's something that 09:15 we have to be ever cognizant of. 09:17 And the only real defense we have is a group defense. 09:21 If a critical mass of the population 09:25 just say no more, 09:26 just like with the... 09:28 You think you invoke McCarthy somewhat earlier. 09:31 You know, McCarthyism was destructive 09:35 for this country many people 09:36 and whole industries were debilitated 09:39 by the charge of communism, 09:40 but all it took in the end was one guy 09:42 that got up and says, "Have you no shame." 09:44 Well, the problem is... 09:46 And then the whole edifice was collapsed. 09:47 When there's the use of real 09:49 or imagined terrorist threats to create 09:51 or consolidate authoritarian regimes. 09:54 I mean to consolidate authority by using such propaganda, 10:00 by using real or imagined terrorist threats 10:04 to consolidate authority 10:06 that is not helpful for our country 10:09 and that seems to be the era 10:12 that we are living in right now. 10:14 And it shows you to me in a way 10:17 how closely our constitution can be abrogated, destroyed, 10:21 Ellen White warns about that 10:23 in the fifth volume of Testimonies 10:24 that, that our constitution, 10:28 when our constitution is destroyed 10:30 it would be because of, 10:32 you know, people thinking in a Sunday law 10:34 and all of this stuff. 10:36 We know that as Seventh-day Adventists. 10:37 But we don't often factor in other things 10:40 that could lead to that 10:41 that could trigger such a dissolution, 10:45 a quick rapid dissolution of our constitution. 10:48 The underlying enabling act 10:50 which is always been my burden 10:52 rather than legal changes is social consciousness 10:56 or the population consciousness. 10:58 If, let's just make it posit, but I think it's fact, 11:02 if you have a population 11:04 that don't know the constitution, 11:06 how can they be true to the constitution. 11:08 The constitution's power was that, 11:10 it was putting on paper what a critical mass 11:14 of the people originally believed. 11:17 We don't even know 11:18 if we believe it now, if that's... 11:20 You know, I've seen any number of programs 11:21 where they ask people about the constitution, 11:22 they don't know. 11:24 And if they know anything, 11:25 it's the Declaration of Independence, 11:27 that shorthand for what they think 11:28 of the constitution. 11:29 So the constitution is unlikely to be consciously abrogated, 11:32 it's just forgotten. 11:34 And we know that people have become 11:37 more and more easily swayed by demagoguery 11:40 or just the emergency of the times after 9/11, 11:43 you know, people would say, 11:44 I don't care if the president knows what I'm doing, 11:46 if they're spying on me as long as I'm protected. 11:47 Right. 11:49 I mean, yeah, you understand emotionally 11:50 why they would say that, 11:52 but the underlying inference of that is, 11:54 I'm willing to live in a police state 11:56 as long as you keep, 11:57 keep the dogs away from me. 11:59 And we're drifting into that sort of 12:01 an enabling dynamic 12:03 and the Catholic Church you mentioned. 12:05 The popes come and go and their attitudes change 12:08 a little bit from time to time, 12:09 but whatever, 12:11 they were never able to do anything 12:12 to Protestant America 12:14 when Protestant sensibilities were intact. 12:16 But when you forget who you are, 12:18 why you are Protestant, 12:20 why individual liberties are so important, 12:23 you're easy pickings for these emergencies. 12:25 And there's that famous quote, 12:27 you know, that is to give away 12:28 civil liberties for an emergency, 12:30 don't deserve liberty or what is that safety. 12:35 I think the argument is strong... 12:37 Benjamin Franklin said that. 12:38 Yeah, that we're actually not so sitting ducks, 12:42 we've moved ourselves as a modern community 12:46 into enchanted ground 12:47 because we think differently than what we claim. 12:51 But there's another attitude that goes with that 12:53 and that is this idea that God is ultimately in control, 12:56 so therefore, this must be God's will 12:59 and, you know, and they cite Daniel 2 13:02 where God sets up kings, takes down Kings, 13:05 but I'm reminded of Hosea 8:4 and it's a most amazing text, 13:11 and I spoke about this with Charles Mills, 13:14 and he wrote an article 13:15 for Liberty Magazine that you have, 13:17 and it's fascinating 13:19 because Hosea 8:4 says the following. 13:23 Some of our viewers may know Charles Mills, 13:25 he's the necessary man 13:30 that we've hired to do the radio program, 13:32 I do... 13:33 And that's called Liberty Quest. 13:34 Yeah. 13:36 He's the moderator for me mostly. 13:37 I did three programs with him on Tuesday. 13:39 Yeah. Did you do three? Yes. 13:41 It was to be two, but I said, needs to be more. 13:43 It was used to be two, but the second one ran over 13:45 and we turned out into a third one. 13:47 Good. Yeah 13:48 So I hope some of our viewers can tune into 3ABN radio 13:52 which rebroadcasts... 13:53 Liberty Quest. Yes. Liberty Quest. 13:55 Hosea 8:4, says, 13:57 "They have set up kings but not by me, 13:59 they have made princes 14:01 and I knew it not of their silver 14:03 and their gold have they made them idols 14:06 that they may be cut off." 14:07 And so, you know, 14:09 that to me says very clearly that, 14:12 you know, yes, God is ultimately in control, 14:14 that's true, 14:15 but He does not interfere with our day to day choices. 14:20 And so we have to remember that. 14:22 We ultimately choose who our president is 14:25 through our Democratic-Republican system 14:28 and, you know, that can have some ill effects. 14:32 I mean, we have to, we cannot forget 14:35 that Adolf Hitler was elected the leader of his nation, okay. 14:41 And we should not forget 14:42 that it wasn't just a single person, 14:45 I mean, he took it in an aberrant direction, 14:46 but he couldn't have done 14:48 what he did without a general enabling attitude 14:51 of the people. 14:52 Anti-semitism was systemic in Germany at that time. 14:58 And attitudes toward foreigners, 15:01 gypsies and others was murderous, 15:04 and he just kept capitalized on it, 15:05 but it existed. 15:07 Yeah, let me... 15:08 The idea that one man hijacked the whole country is nonsense. 15:10 Right, Hosea 8:4, the NIV says it better, 15:14 I read the King James before, but it says, 15:16 "They set up kings without my consent, 15:18 they choose princes without my approval, 15:20 with their gold and silver 15:22 they make idols for themselves 15:24 to their own destruction." 15:25 It's very plain. 15:26 We'll visit that 15:28 when we come back after a short break. 15:29 Stay with us, 15:31 Reichstag fire and old things that pertained to such. |
Revised 2017-05-04